Kevin Fay, Paul de Larminat, Torben Funder-Kristensen, Jürgen Goeller, Andrea Voigt, Rajan Rajendran | Global Food Cold Chain Council

Towards a Sustainable Global Food Supply and the Cold Chain

The first of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the UN is eliminating poverty. We describe in this chapter the value that the food cold chain (FCC) provides in enabling a sustainable global food supply which can help with this important goal of the UN. The cold chain is the complex network of private and public sector provided infrastructure and products that allows for safe collection, transportation, processing, storage, and display for sale or consumption, various foods, both farm grown and processed. As the name implies, the food cold chain ensures the freshness and quality of food by maintaining food at the optimum conditions for safety and quality. The private industry and the Global Food Cold Chain Council have come together, in partnership with UNEP and other groups, to map the current state of the FCC by launching an effort to create a database and the modelling of scenarios for expanded global food cold chains, its carbon footprint (GHG emissions), energy consumption, refrigerant transition and reduction of food losses. This chapter follows much of the information to be presented in the paper at the International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR) International Conference on Sustainability and the Cold Chain (ICCC) in Nantes, France on April 15-17, 2020.

1. Introduction

Studies show a clear trend to a rapid increase in global cooling demand over the coming decades, especially in developing countries where roughly 40 percent of the global population lives (expected to climb to 50 percent by 2030*), [‡‡] and where the need for cooling is most crucial. Even in moderate climates, it would be impossible to support a modern urban economy without adequate cooling. Demand for cooling will increase even more in developing countries because of expected global warming, population growth and massive growth of urbanization.

While the benefits of cooling are unquestionable, there is widespread concern that its development may generate undesired consequences such as greater emissions of Green House Gases (GHG), directly from the leaks of refrigerants (commonly used for refrigeration in the FCC) to the atmosphere, and indirectly though the associated energy consumption. These concerns are being addressed by international agreements, especially the Montreal Protocol and its Kigali Amendment, and the Paris Climate Agreement; but many questions remain about implementing these agreements. Other concerns are the infrastructure required for generation and distribution of energy, need for qualified labor, appropriate refrigerant management, and more.

The two major sectors where cooling is needed are “comfort cooling” or air conditioning (A/C), and Food Cold Chain (FCC). Other applications also exist, like industrial (chemical, pharmaceutical) cooling, data center cooling etc. Over the past years, there has been significant focus on the A/C sector; the current markets and anticipated needs are relatively well identified, as well as possible road maps achieving the desired solutions. But the FCC sector is not nearly as well analyzed. It is also closely interlinked with critical issues related to nutrition, like food production and waste, land use, cultural behaviors toward food etc. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop a map of the current state of FCC, perspectives of development, and possible consequences.

2. Scope of FCC, Technologies and Challenges

Scope

In general, FCC encompasses all the cooling required for food production, processing, storing and distribution “from farm to fork”. There are seven major sectors of applications: primary production (fishing and farming), processing and packaging (dairy, meat, and produce…), bulk storage, transport, retail (shops and vending machines), food service (restaurants, catering), and domestic refrigeration. The medical sector (hospitals, tertiary, transport and storage of pharmaceuticals) is also included in some of the studies.

2.2. Technologies

A predominant amount of equipment that provides cooling in the FCC uses what is know as “vapor compression” method, which relies on a fluid called a “refrigerant” as the working medium for the movement of heat. Most of the cooling needs for FCC are at two typical temperature levels: around 0 to 5°C for processing and storage of fresh produce, or around -20°C for frozen products. A few applications such as dry freezing or high quality freezing require substantially lower temperatures, as low as -60°C.

Cooling capacities range from a few hundred watts for small household refrigerators to several megawatts for large warehouses of food processing plants. Small systems like home fridges or small vending machines are self-contained hermetic systems. Large systems are usually “flooded”, using liquid refrigerant pumped to various applications from a central machine room. Intermediate systems are based on condensing units feeding refrigerants to a few “dry-expansion” cooling coils at various points of use.

In medium and large refrigeration systems, the hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC) refrigerant R-22 was widely preferred, with ammonia (R-717) as the choice for industrial systems. R-22, which is in the process of being phased out under the Montreal Protocol, has been mostly replaced by higher Global Warming Potential (GWP) hydrofluorocarbons (HFC) refrigerants R-134a and R-404A in developed countries. Solutions generally exist to replace R-404A and R-134a with lower GWP fluids in new and existing systems, except for the retrofit of large flooded R-22 systems. There are also satisfactory solutions for small self-contained systems. A detailed review of the various sectors, technologies and trends can be found in the series of “Cold Chain Technology Briefs” published by the IIR and UNEP. [§§]

3. FCC Contributions to Achieving the SDGs

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were established by the UN in 2015 for achievement by 2030, as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. They consist of 17 goals aimed at improving livelihoods and achieving sustainable development with regards to environmental, social, and economic global equity. The 17 goals (and associated targets) cover areas of concern such as poverty and poor health conditions, as well as implementation groundwork like partnerships and financing. The development of cooling is strategic to achieving many of these goals; for instance:

SDGs 2, 3, 11, 12, 13: Reduced food loss and food waste. A robust cold chain can significantly reduce the loss of food caused by spoilage between food production and food retail. In developing countries, more widespread use of residential refrigeration can significantly reduce food waste at the point of use. Current levels of food loss and waste are estimated to be around 30% of all food produced. This creates significant GHG emissions which can be avoided by improving the food cold chain.

SDGs 3, 10: Improved healthcare. Around 50% of medicines are heat sensitive and require a robust cold chain to avoid wastage and dangerous degradation of products. Many types of sophisticated medical equipment (such as scanners) require cooling, and cooling is crucial for blood and tissue storage.

SDG 7: Affordable and clean energy. The increased use of renewable energy sources comes with challenges to balance electricity supply and demand. Cooling, as well as heating by heat pumps, can provide solutions to optimize the balance, for example by demand shifting controls as well as storing energy (cold and hot storage, also called “thermal” storage batteries).

SDGs 12, 13: Addressing undesired consequences of cooling through the use of sustainable cooling aligns with the important SDGs related to climate action and responsible consumption and production. A sustainable cooling approach also implies making responsible use of natural resources to produce cooling equipment (for example copper, aluminium, steel, refrigerants). This includes the need to reduce, recover and reuse these materials, contributing to a circular economy approach.

4. Intergovernmental Framework

4.1. Kigali Amendment and Paris Climate Agreement

Countries ratifying the Kigali Amendment and (or) the Paris Climate Agreement accept the obligation to take actions at multiple levels. Regarding refrigerant fluids, the phase out of HCFCs (including R-22) is nearly completed in “Article-2” countries (basically developed countries, according to the Montreal Protocol terminology), but is still ongoing in “Article-5” (developing) countries, implementing their HCFC Phase-Down Management Plans (HPMP). But there is now an additional level of complexity with the need to combine it with the phase-down of HFCs. This phase-down is already under way in the EU under its F-Gas Regulation; it is starting in other Article-2 countries under the Kigali Amendment, and will have to be taken into account in Article-5 countries soon as well.

Wider objectives of GHG emissions also have to be worked out by countries that ratified the Paris Climate Agreement, according to their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC). In any case, limiting energy consumption is a must everywhere for many reasons, including the critical need to reduce air pollution in many cities.

So, countries ratifying the Kigali Amendment and the Paris Climate Agreement have to implement their HPMPs, comply with HFC phase-down per Kigali Amendment, and work out their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) under the Paris Climate Agreement, all these targets being interlinked. Even the countries that did not ratify the Kigali Amendment and (or) Paris Climate Agreement will be strongly impacted by the same trends. For this reason, some countries like China, India and Rwanda have already developed national Cooling Action Plans (CAP), while many others are working on it. Irrespective of legal obligations, such plans are needed everywhere to address the many challenges raised by the needed development of cooling.

4.2. Technologies

In addition to the aforementioned international agreements, action is also driven by some resolutions of the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) regarding Food Loss and Waste. UNEA is the governing body of UNEP and has universal membership of all 193 states; it meets every two years to set international priorities for global environmental policy and law.

UNEA Resolution 9 (2016) recognizes that national governments and international institutions play a central role in contributing to solving global food loss and waste problems. Organizations should:

a) Promote market-based incentives, co-operation with stakeholders in cold chain sustainability, and improve measurement of food loss and waste.

b) Implement programs that reduce food wastage and reuse of edible food that might otherwise be wasted.

UNEA Resolution 9 (2019) states that organizations and institutions should:

a) Contribute towards solving food loss and waste with an orientation towards addressing environmental, socio-economic, and public-health problems.

b) Engage with stakeholders in food systems and participate in international efforts.

5. Sustainability of the FCC: A Paradox?

While there is no doubt about the benefits of cooling in general and more specifically of the FCC, some concerns are being raised that its expansion could have undesired environmental consequences through emissions of refrigerant fluids and increased energy consumption. But this must be put in perspective with the substantial benefits of the FCC also from an environmental standpoint. Studies show that nearly 30% of global food production is lost or wasted, while the production of this lost or wasted food itself also has a large carbon footprint.

If food loss and waste were a country, it would be considered the third largest GHG emitter (Figure 1). Therefore, all efforts to minimize food loss and waste will positively and notably contribute to Climate Actions. As a substantial part of food loss is due to the lack of refrigeration, expanding the FCC will indirectly reduce GHG emissions from food loss. Only 20% of perishable foods produced worldwide are actually refrigerated (Source: IIR, 2019).

A study made by Deloitte (source: Global Food Cold Chain Council, 2015) shows that the emission benefits of introducing cold chain technologies from farm to market are almost a factor of 10. We still need to investigate the impact of modern retail and home appliances in a full modern cold chain, and this will add some emissions. However, low GWP refrigerants, energy efficiency and energy management to serve decarbonized electricity grids will minimize this impact.

Several scenarios must be outlined based on a Business As Usual (BAU) scenario as a reference in a model of the FCC development. Without globally acknowledged models and executed plans food cold chains will develop autonomously and likely be far from sustainable.

6. Need for the FCC Mapping

In order to identify how the FCC can better serve the goals of sustainable growth in food availability, various approaches are possible. One approach is to start from statistics about the production, imports and exports of agricultural products in various countries. It is a good starting point, as the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) has robust statistics on this data; but it is not enough: while almost two thirds of global food loss is estimated to be caused by a lack of refrigeration in the cold chain, more work is needed in areas such as:

- Using a holistic and overarching sectors approach

- More data on understanding the economic and social reasons

- More data on industrial, environmental and cultural factors

6.1. Different Initiatives and Groups Addressing the Subject

GFCCC

The GFCCC (Global Food Cold Chain Council) is a coalition of private sector companies involved in global food supply technologies. The GFCCC aims to reduce emissions and food wastage in the food cold chain by expanding and improving energy efficient, low GWP infrastructure and technologies. This is achieved through research, outreach, and implementation of projects.

UNEP

UN Environment is the leading global authority on environmental issues and sustainability. UNEP partners with a range of actors to create and implement sustainable development and environmental strategies. UNEP is leader in Champions 12.3 and has established a number of initiatives and projects.

FAO

FAO is the UN agency specialized on its central objectives of achieving food security and eliminating hunger and malnutrition. It works with governments and international organizations to promote awareness and develop policies; facilitate coordination amongst food supply chain actors; and educate consumers on safe food handling, food storage, and identifying spoiled foods to prevent food waste.

Champions 12.3

Champions 12.3 is a coalition of bottom-up and top-down experts and commercial groups committed to addressing SDG 12.3 – “by 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses”. The Coalition does this through a range of projects that include knowledge and best practices information sharing, publicizing food wastage and promoting sustainability, identification of opportunities that enhance and encourage food sustainability.

IEA

IEA (International Energy Agency) promotes energy sustainability through analysis of all energy sources, energy efficiency, supply and demand, technologies, markets, and demand side management. It partners with countries and organizations to support economic development, environmental awareness, and energy security.

IIR

IIR (International Institute of Refrigeration) is an independent inter-governmental organization that promotes knowledge on cost-effectiveness and environmental sustainability in refrigeration and associated technologies.

7. The Cold Chain Database Model Project

7.1. Purpose of the project

To address the aforementioned issues, UN Environment and GFCCC have jointly initiated a project for the development of a complete database for the modelling of Food Cold Chains. The expected benefit for the various countries is to have suitable data available to fulfill their obligations under the Kigali Amendment and the Paris Climate Agreement, and also to prepare relevant national policies about cooling, energy, infrastructure etc. To do this, the initial and longer-term objectives are:

Initial: understand current status, with assessment of stock of cooling equipment in different sectors of the FCC, energy usage and related CO2 emissions, refrigerants usage and related CO2 emissions, levels of food loss linked to the lack of FCC.

Long-term: assess future scenarios with different levels of improvements to the FCC, with assessment of investments required, potential benefits (e.g. GHG reduction, financial value of food saved), and potential impacts (e.g. additional use of energy and refrigerants, CO2 emissions); finance will also be a major issue to deploy solutions; it will be crucial to have a robust analysis to define suitable solutions, and also to build confidence in investors that the solutions are reasonable and optimized.

7.2. Data collection

A key part of the project will be data collection, beginning with background research, using international data sources such as FAO statistics and the wealth of data and previous studies already conducted by the IIR. Then, more detailed analyses will be conducted at national levels. “Stage 1” will report about national data sources and results from dedicated questionnaires to be documented by the countries. This will include the collection of available statistics on production, number of relevant FCC facilities, level of food loss etc. In “Stage 2” more detailed data will be gathered, based on customized investigation plans and detailed data from this plan.

This data collection will first be conducted in five or six pilot countries, then extended to others after validation of the methodology. Relevant local contacts will be made initially through the National Ozone Officers of the countries, but will also involve the local networks of the various organizations involved in the project, such as the commercial networks of the companies participating in GFCCC, the IIR networks, trade associations, and other intergovernmental organizations, which will also contribute with their technical expertise.

All data collected by the countries during the pilot stage, and shared with partners in the cold chain model for review and analysis, will be dealt with in a confidential manner and shall not be shared without consent of the respective country.

8. Importance of Private Sector Involvement

A key feature of this project is the impact of the private sector and is very important at various levels. Industry partners were involved at earlier stages to set the structure of the model by market sectors and sub-sectors, jointly with other experts like from IIR. This expertise will also be important to analyze the results, draw some conclusions, envision scenarios for the future and anticipate implementation.

The refrigerant transition has to be addressed as well. Some of the currently used technologies could be “leap-frogged” to lower GWP technologies where feasible, particularly in developing country economies. But refrigerant issues are only a small part of the puzzle, wherein energy and costs are the key issues. Just making a “copy-paste” of solutions currently used in developed countries would not be satisfactory. Energy use must be reduced both in developed and developing countries, with an adequate mix of using currently existing “BATs”, and innovation. Current Best Available Technologies (BAT) must be deployed because the systems to be installed in the forthcoming ten years or so are bound to be among solutions that are already commercially available today, or at an advanced stage of development; but less efficient solutions would result in unacceptably high-energy consumptions. Simultaneously, innovation is needed to develop more energy efficient solutions for the future. Yet, there are limits to the efficiency of thermodynamic machines. Besides improving them, most of the improvements are expected to come from the reduction and management of cooling loads, e.g. by better building envelopes, and by better integration of systems to serve a decarbonised electricity supply. This will require close scrutiny of local needs and current practices, for which the “database” is expected to be a useful tool. The involvement of industry at this early stage is also expected to benefit the development of reasonable road maps”.

9. What Policy Forum is best for dealing with Food Loss and Waste?

The question arises where is the best policy forum in which to deal with the challenges and opportunities presented by the issue of food loss and waste. The issues are definitely cross-cutting, dealing with multiple disciplines and government departments, and not necessarily having a singular policy focus. Traditionally, agriculture issues have dealt with increasing production and trade, and avoiding crop damage due to weather, pestilence and disease. These have traditionally involved National Departments of Agriculture and Trade. Given the growing impacts of food loss and waste, and the myriad of areas in which climate-related issues are now dealt, it would be helpful to find a forum in which activities could coalesce. Research has shown that the issues are now being examined and dealt with in Agriculture, Environment, Economic Development, Food Loss and Waste, and Foreign Ministries.

At its last Meeting of the Parties, the parties to the Montreal Protocol issued the Rome Declaration on the Contribution of the Montreal Protocol to Food Loss Reduction through Sustainable Cold Chain Development, which calls upon the Parties to strengthen and coordinate “Between Governments, the institutions of the Montreal Protocol, the specialized agencies of the United Nations, existing private and public initiatives and all relevant stakeholders to exchange knowledge and promote innovation of energy-efficient solutions and technologies that reduce the use of substances controlled by the Montreal Protocol in the development of the cold chain, thereby contributing to the reduction of food loss and waste”. The declaration has been signed by 78 parties and the European Union, and more are expected to follow.

The Montreal Protocol has a 30-year track record of success in environmental protection, distribution of financial assistance, achieving significant technology transitions on a global scale, and developing major focal points for policy development.

Success in reducing food loss and waste need not be viewed as a regulatory challenge, but rather an economic opportunity that also provides real environmental and societal benefits. As was pointed out earlier, reducing food loss and waste touches on many of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

UN Environment has also created its initiative for the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC), whose mission is to promote significant greenhouse gas reductions while also capturing related environment and health benefits. CCAC has had an active initiative on HFC emissions reduction, and has also established a goal of developing a program on food loss and waste.

It would appear that an opportunity to link the Montreal Protocol with CCAC and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) may provide a good focal point for achieving real long-term reductions in food loss and waste, relevant sustainable cold chain technology expansion, and providing an experienced record for scientific, technology, and economic assessment. This is just one example, but it would succeed in developing the multi-disciplinary approach necessary to achieve the economic and environmental opportunities that are possible. Other venues may also be appropriate. It is critical that policy leaders look for this multi-disciplinary forum and policy opportunity in the near future.

10. Conclusions

The development of cooling in general and the FCC in particular will be critical for human wellbeing and to achieve many of the SDGs in the forthcoming decades, but it has to be planned carefully to avoid undesired consequences, especially from an environmental standpoint. The FCC had drawn little attention from policy makers until recently, but it is now quickly gaining visibility. Several initiatives have been started to design suitable roadmaps. One of the key initiatives was presented, with joint efforts from UNEP and GFCCC, to make a fact-based analysis of this sector, jointly with other organizations like FAO, IEA or IIR. A key feature of this project is that it directly involves policy makers and industry. It is hoped that this initiative will enable the successful development of a sustainable FCC, including solutions optimized for various contexts, and facilitating financing for the deployment of suitable solutions. An appropriate multi-disciplinary forum is necessary in order to move the policy process and to capture the environmental and economic opportunities.

11. References

ICCC 2020: https://iccc2020.sciencesconf.org/

UN: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org

FAO: Global food losses and food waste – extent, causes and prevention, 2011.

Global Food Cold Chain Council: Assessing the potential of the cold chain sector to reduce GHG emissions through food loss and waste reduction, October 2015.

IIR: Update of the IIR Informatory Note N°5-2009, 25th ICR International Congress of Refrigeration, August 24-30, 2019 Montréal, Canada.

SKM Enviros: Examination of the Global Warming Potential of Refrigeration in the Food Chain, June 2011.

Rome Declaration of the Contribution of the Montreal Protocol to Food Loss Reduction through Sustainable Cold Chain Development. November 8, 2019 Rome Italy: conf.montreal-protocol.org/meeting/mop/mop-31/report/English/MOP-31-9E.pdf

End notes

[‡‡] Source: http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/tropical-countries/
[§§] https://iifiir.org/en/fridoc/142038